When I think about health, I always associate it with time ⌛: the quantity and quality of the time I use today and might have tomorrow.
There are a thousand things I would like to do ✈️, and I would love to squeeze everything out of life until my last breath.
The need for longevity and quality of (physical) life is a rapidly growing trend.
The health market is probably the furthest behind in terms of services and experience. Healthcare CX 🏥 (with some exceptions) is not the same as what we experience with Internet OTT providers.
That is why I think the first player to overturn the paradigm is destined to create a new era in the market.
In traditional Chinese medicine, the doctor is paid if the patient is well!
From an ethical and marketing perspective, this is the right paradigm.
As before any revolution, all the technological and behavioural prerequisites are already there: broadband networks, video systems, smart devices, and a population that is more digitally equipped and more willing to use them.
I imagine 🤔 a subscription-based system where I am monitored and can easily get in touch with specialists through telemedicine.
For medical professionals, I also think it would be more stimulating and rewarding to be part of a team that follows people to improve their quality of life and help them live longer (rather than earning money according to other people’s misfortunes).
Personally, I do not like the word patient: it brings to mind the patience you need when dealing with healthcare.
Patients could be called ‘athletes of time’, and doctors ‘coaches of time’.
I imagine a cardiologist 👩⚕️ looking at a dashboard 📈 in the morning (just like in the digital world 😂), with data on all their athletes, and push notifications being sent automatically at carefully chosen, appropriate moments.
Technological advances will allow us to have a full set of tests done as soon as we leave the bathroom, with the data automatically uploaded to the cloud in our profile and visible to the coaches.
Meanwhile, nanotechnology will make it possible for remotely controlled microrobots to intervene inside our bodies (for example, to clear a blocked artery).
I do not know whether I will get to enjoy these possibilities, but I am sure this will be the future, because health cannot be reactive: it must be preventive. Everything depends on what you do every day: what you eat, the physical activity you do, what you read and the human relationships you cultivate.